A century later, Stoughton historian looks back at US entry into WWI

Until the United States became involved in World War I, the editor of the Stoughton News-Sentinel was skeptical about international reports of war.

“Once war was declared, he was all in, from that point on,” Stoughton Historical Society President Dwight MacKerron said of the editor’s reaction to the conflict that, for the United States, began 100 years ago on April 6, 1917.

The war took a total of 18 young men who lived in Stoughton.

The Great War, as it was called for years, was nearly three years old when the United States joined its French and British allies, and the conflict was mired in a bloody stalemate. Locked in trench warfare across much of Western Europe, opposing forces suffered huge casualties for minimal territorial gains.

In declaring war on Germany, the United States cited German submarine attacks on merchant and passenger ships in the North Atlantic as well as an intercepted telegram from the German foreign minister to Germany’s ambassador in Mexico City. Known as the Zimmerman Telegram, the message outlined a secret German plan to help Mexico recover territory in the Southwestern United States in exchange for Mexican support in the war.

For its part, Canton was then a “sleepy little town,” composed of fewer than 4,000 residents, Canton Historical Society curator James Roache said. But that didn’t stop the town from creating its own little self-defense force, called the home guard. Stoughton did, too, forming the 93rd Home Guard. Home guards consisted of older men or younger people who weren’t fit for military duty.

“We have good pictures of them marching in fields and shooting guns, but there was no invasion, so there wasn’t much for them to do,” MacKerron said.

Supplies were limited, due to rationing. During the war, there were specific days on which supplies were rationed, Roache said. For instance, on a certain day, if wheat were rationed, the entire town would go without wheat. This continued for most of the duration of the war.

While people weren’t exactly starving in Canton, they were certainly not living luxuriously, Roache said. As the war continued, certain items, like meat, were harder to come by, and prices for these goods increased.

Stoughton felt the pinch, too, as evidenced by a darkly humorous poem that points to increasing prices and decreasing portion sizes. The poem was written by James J. Montague, and was published in an August edition of the Stoughton News-Sentinel. The beginning reads:

“They’ve cut the prime roast beef in two,

It’s just a wafer now;

A method whch [sic] they must pursue

To conservate the cow.

But it would glad our hearts a bit

If these conserving gents

Would cut the figures opposite,

Which still read ninety cents.”

Rationing and chronic shortage weren’t specific to the area, though. A once-bright red headline, now faded, on an Aug. 24, 1917, edition of the Boston American read, “New England Faces Coal Famine.”

Roache said the need for coal became so great that youths would wait for trains carrying coal to go through town, scrabbling to pick up pieces that fell off, as the train passed. In an effort to mitigate the lack of fuel for heat and cooking, in the winter of 1917 into 1918, the town’s selectmen and its Fuel Committee put together wood lots.

“They opened up wood lots. Wood lots would just be off the side of the road, and people were allowed to take wood to heat their homes and cook their food,” Roache said. “They had large sections of [forest] that got wiped out, as far as trees were concerned.”

The towns also had to deal with the influenza pandemic, which hit in late 1919. The pandemic tended to kill people in the 20-40-year-old age range, because their immune systems fought so hard against the disease that their organs failed. Roache said upwards of 600 people in Canton sickened, 60 of whom died.

By the time the troops returned home in 1919, the pandemic was dying down. The towns held parades for their returning men. The parades also celebrated the heroism of those men serving in the 26th Infantry, nicknamed the Yankee Division. It was the first full U.S. unit to deploy overseas after the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917. The unit was nearly entirely composed of guardsmen from Massachusetts and the other New England states.